


Things to Come

by gondalsqueen



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Backstory, Childhood, F/M, Flight School, Flight Training, Hera's Aunt Treya is problematic, Mothers and Daughters, Sexual Harrassment, but she means well, fathers and daughters, girl talk, like poorly thought out dares and political dissidence, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-04-29
Packaged: 2019-02-28 19:11:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13278054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gondalsqueen/pseuds/gondalsqueen
Summary: A collection of scenes from Hera's childhood.Ch 1: Cham Syndulla almost missed the birth of his daughter because he was fighting his biggest battle yet--this one with the delegation representing Ryloth in the Senate. And he was losing.Ch 2: “If you ever—” she said, the words shaking. “If you EVER disobey me like that again—”Hera sniffed, frightened.“The next time I tell you to run, you run.”Ch. 3: “Cute kid. When she dies, pack that thing up.”“What if she doesn’t die?”Ch. 4: Holding tight to her arm, Treya bent over to look her in the face and spoke low. “If you lose your cool like that just because somebody says something nasty to you,” she said, “you are going to end up dead.”Ch. 5: Teenage girls—no matter how different they were when they started out, if you put them in a building together for a few months they all came out sounding the same.





	1. At the Right Time

**Author's Note:**

> I have all of these backstory relationship-based scenes in my head for Hera, and it's become clear that they are never going to be relevant in the context of any other story! So here, have them.

Cham Syndulla almost missed the birth of his daughter because he was fighting his biggest battle yet--this one with the delegation representing Ryloth in the Senate. And he was losing.

To be precise, he had already lost. Taa had accused Syndulla of caring about his ideals more than about the lives of ordinary people, and then he’d thrown out the phrases “terrorist,” “elitist trash with nothing to lose” and “some people need jobs,” and there was really no coming back from accusations like that. Not within the same conversation, anyway.

But Cham was fighting mad, and he could try.

A movement in the doorway caught his eye. Treya, leaning into the meeting room and downright intimidating with that look on her face so much like her sister’s. She’d been sent to take him to Maya. Now. He’d have to admit defeat for today. Which was unacceptable--if they didn’t act on these regulations now, the new corporations would settle into the Tann province and weave themselves inextricably into its economic life. And however they branded themselves, that would mean more spice miners and more slavers.

He was still glowering about it ten minutes later, as he strode to the transport with Treya. “Turn it off, Cham,” she ordered.

And then he did, because watching a child be born was both terrifying and wonderful, and he had no defense at all against it.

Alone with the baby for the first time, hours later, he tucked her more securely into the swaddle and examined her tiny face, the only part of her body that seemed connected to her brain as yet. Sound asleep, she scrunched her eyes closed like a child feigning a nap. He searched her for family resemblance beyond her mother’s pale green skin, and came up with only the image of his own father. That hardly counted, though--all new babies looked like wizened old men. So he used his hands to explore instead, feeling her tiny nose, the ridge of her brow, the soft spots on the back of her head where lekku would grow in. Malleable, helpless, and completely incapable. And yet she might do anything, at this point--she’d never been hurt, never failed. She might be a genius, or a general, or even a senator, goddess help us all.

Or a slave or a miner, supplied the cynical voice he used most of the time, though he doubted that such a fate would befall his child. What would she do? Oh, little baby, Ryloth is going to get worse, he thought. What will happen to you?

Maya hadn’t wanted children at first. You can choose your child or you can choose the world, she’d said. Children make you conservative, cautious lest somebody retaliate against you and hurt them. “And for us?” she’d argued. “Do you want to worry about your toddler being kidnapped every time you make an unpopular decision? We’ve already got a duty, Cham. If we put a child first, we won’t act.” But that was years ago, and they’d both come around since then.

Looking into his new daughter’s face, Cham was terrified. He’d failed her. His whole generation had failed her. Here she slept, knowing too little even to trust him, and he was giving her a world with predators just outside her front door.

But it wasn’t too late yet. He could shelter her for a while, and later... How old were children when they started to become people and retain memories? He didn’t know. He’d have to work fast.

A snuffling sound from the baby interrupted his brooding. He shifted her closer and swung her gently in his arms, the way the nurse had shown him. The snuffling turned to fretful whining, an animal sound, and then to unrestrained, furious wails, and he decided that the noise was intolerable at the same time he realized that this child would grow up demanding whatever she thought she deserved.

From the next room, Maya groaned theatrically, woken by the noise. “Just bring her to me,” she called. “She’s probably hungry.”

The baby’s shrieking was beginning to turn her face purple. In a panic, Cham did as he was told, then stood by awkwardly, useless to help. A knock at the door of the suite saved him. Oh, good. He hurried to the outer room.

It was Gobi, who rushed into the sitting area like an excited child. “Can I see her? Is she beautiful? Is she tall?”

“Long,” Cham corrected. “She’s eating right now. Stay.”

Mortified at interrupting, Gobi scanned for Maya. Cham laughed. “She’s in the bedroom, it’s all right.”

“Oh. Whew. You’ve got to warn me.”

“Caf?”

“Yes!”

Cham busied himself with the dispenser.

“They released today’s debate to the holonet already,” Gobi told him. “I saw it on the way over.”

Sith-spawn. Great. Cham almost burned his hand.

“You were fine. Inspiring. But we’re going to lose anyway.”

“I know.” He frowned, thinking. “And we can’t lose this one. It’s a tipping point.”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

What did he want to do? He wanted to change things instead of just talking about them. Fatherhood wouldn’t make him afraid. Or rather, it wouldn’t make him use his fear in that way--shrinking back, timid. “I think...it is time to move beyond small acts of resistance.”

“We tried the Senate. I wish you would just take my suggestion—”

“Not the Senate. I think it is time for an army.”

That’s what he would put between Hera and the world. Now. Right now. There wasn’t a moment to waste.


	2. In a Pinch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Hera's mother gets to be a person.

Maya got the rice bubbling, covered it with a piece of camouflage tarp to keep the steam in and the flies out, and turned the knob on the Republic-issue army stove to low. Dinner was going well.

The flame went out.

Okay, maybe “well” was an overstatement. This should have been so easy! But while she could plan an elaborate seven-course meal for diplomatic delegations, field strip a blaster, or debate political philosophy with anyone in the galaxy, most of the skills that they needed now—such as basic cooking—hadn’t been covered in her education.

She frowned at the little canister of fuel under the stove, then carefully slid her arm beneath it and gave it one good thwap with her forefinger. The igniter popped and the fire roared to life again, and that modest success assuaged a little of her chagrin. She WAS getting better.

Still, cooking in the open air was a surreal experience. They were all still too shell-shocked to feel real annoyance at their rough surroundings or to believe their good luck in surviving. A week ago they’d been pinned on the Cazne plains with no shelter, nothing to eat, and Separatist troops closing in on three sides. A week ago, General Di and his troops had bought them time to escape that death trap. She’d thought Cham was going to kill himself to get them all to safety, and he had lived. And instead, a Jedi master and his entire division were dead. Maya didn’t know how to make sense of a galaxy in which Core Worlds men sacrificed themselves for her and her family. But if the past week had been an uncomfortable lesson in humility, a reminder of how much she needed other people, she welcomed it in comparison to the month of siege and starvation before that.

And then the first supply drop had come, and with those ration bars, the strength to start thinking about the future again. Yesterday, the second drop—canned goods, dried grains, and even some miraculous packets of spices, which were not strictly necessary. Some person on Coruscant had put thought into packing this for them. This wasn’t foreign aid, it was a care package.

The war went on, but they would live.

Cham and a few of his lieutenants passed by on the way to survey the next cavern, and he waved at her backside, blasé, as they went.

Maya sat up and stuck her tongue out at him.

“You’d best have dinner ready by six!” he called across the field to her.

“You make one more comment like that and I will feed every bite to the blurrgs!” she yelled back. He’d never dare tease if he hadn’t cooked for them last night.

Within the next couple of days, they’d divide these tasks more efficiently—some kind of a co-op in which they all worked for each other, though she’d need to come up with a plan so that the village women who had showed her how to make rice didn’t bear the burden of cooking for the whole camp. Within the next couple of days, they’d have scouted out the caverns and begun setting up better shelters.

And she would raise her daughter in a cave, for as long as the war lasted. All right. Desperate times were better than none.  

Thoughts of her daughter made her acutely aware of how long it had been since she’d heard the little ones squabbling and playing. Where was that child?  

“Heraaaaaaa!” she bellowed.

Nothing, but Hera wouldn’t answer even if she were in earshot. She was probably afraid she’d get a rice-cooking lesson.

“Diin,” she accosted a poor child who was unlucky enough to be playing within her line of sight, “Where’s Hera?”

He shrugged. “Not with the pack. They’re playing by the gully.”

Great. Cham’s fine army could fend off hundreds of droids and innumerable wild animals, but they couldn’t seem to keep a few small children in camp. Rice cooked slowly for forty minutes, she remembered. Somebody had to go find Hera. 

But after searching the camp for twenty minutes, she was getting increasingly anxious. Nobody had seen Hera in over and hour, and the only child with any information reported her heading towards the forest.

Of course she’d gone there.  

Eighteen minutes until the rice was done. Maya appropriated a hand blaster from one of the guards and started up the rocky canyon path to the three dead trees that the children called the forest. It was well out of the way of any adults and well out of the protection of the guards, which meant that they’d all be sneaking away to congregate there within a few days. Trust Hera to find the highest place and then climb on it when nobody was looking.

She hoped. She didn’t let herself consider the alternative—that Hera was lost somewhere in these hundreds of miles of wasteland. At seven years old, her daughter was a bipolar mix of willful, unreasonable temper tantrums and older-than-her-years dependability—you never knew which Hera you’d be dealing with—but she was usually fairly sensible about looking out for herself. And if she didn’t find her in the trees, Maya didn’t know where she’d look next.

There. Thank goddess. There was a dangling leg and...a child swinging from branch to branch with wild, terrifying jumps. And making some sort of explosion noises in the midst of her game.

“Hera, come down. We’re going back to camp.”

“Just a minute.”

Maya’s temper, which had been simmering just under the surface all day, threatened to break. “Now, young lady. You are in trouble for wandering off.”

“Okay.” Without even the pretense of obeying, Hera jumped from one tree to another. Maya winced and closed her eyes, but the little girl caught her handhold without the least concern.

“Hera,” she snapped, “you are already sticking next to Papa and me all day tomorrow, and if I have to come up in that tree to get you, you’ll be sitting still in camp for a solid week.” 

As soon as she said it, Maya knew the threat was hollow. Nobody wanted to watch Hera for a week.  

She was glad that Hera had never stopped moving, never become listless with hunger like some of the other children—she was grateful beyond thought that her daughter had stayed healthy—but she did wish the child had the _ability_ to sit still for five minutes every so often. 

“Oka-ay,” Hera whined. “I’m COMING.” She then clambered to the next branch. 

“Hera!”

“I have to go this way to get down.”  

Maya tapped her foot for a solid minute of the slowest climbing she’d ever seen until her temper snapped and she started berating her daughter. She tried to mask it as a halfway reasonable lecture, but it sounded like nagging even to her own ears. “Do you know why we don’t let you wander away?”

“Yes.” Hera sat down on a branch. “It’s because you want to know where I am.”

“We’ve got reasons for that. If nobody knows where you are, we’re afraid you’ll break your neck or get eaten by some creature, and who will be around to help you then?”

Maya closed her mouth on a twinge of guilt. She was scared and she was irritated, but there was no reason to scare Hera, who was going to act like a child no matter what worry her mother put on her.

“I won’t get hurt,” Hera told her blithely.  “And Papa says I’m too skinny to make a good snack.”

“Cute,” Maya frowned. “Come on, I have dinner cooking.” She holstered her blaster and found a hand-hold up the last steep rock. Hera gripped onto the lowest branch of the tree, stock-still and stubborn.

No, not stubborn, frozen. Something was wrong.

“Look out!” Hera shouted.

The same instant, Maya grabbed for her blaster. Before she could turn around, the blow landed across her shoulder, sending her three meters to the side and the blaster skidding into the ravine beneath them.

Her mind registered the shape, lithe and razor-bristled, long milliseconds before it thought of the name. Vornskr. They’d found a vornskr. Only the best and most dangerous for the Syndullas.

The creature turned towards her child in the tree, the prey that it hadn’t yet incapacitated.  

“MAMA!” Hera’s voice didn’t sound terrified, it sounded furious—which meant she was about to do something stupid beyond her years.

Maya jumped up before that could happen, scooping a stone the size of her head as she went. “HEY!” She felt the rip of muscle in her arm as she hurtled it at the beast, too panicked to be shocked when it flew far enough to hit. “You look at ME!”

Its body never turned from Hera, but its head swiveled, incredulous, vicious, to look at her.

“Hera,” she said, keeping her tone too low for the creature to care about. “I’m going to draw it this way. You jump down and run back to camp. Fall if you have to. Go FAST.” 

Hera stamped her foot on the branch. “No!”

“Run to Papa and get help.”

Hera glowered at her. I’m not stupid, that face said.

The vornskr twisted its body, pacing closer to Maya. Stalking her. Thank you, goddess. Keep your eyes on me, you gida’tta. No hope of going for the blaster, tumbled into a ditch. She backed away from the tree and kept her voice even. “Her’asyndulla, you listen to me. One. Two. Three. GO!”

Hera kicked out from the tree in a wide, beautiful arc, clearing the top of the hill before she even hit the ground.

In the wrong direction. No, no, please no.

Maya leapt at the vornskr’s back, directly onto the sharp ridge of its spine. It shook her off like a fly and she hit the ground, her arm slippery with blood that she didn’t recognize as her own. Then a blaster fired, one two three four five six seven without a pause, and the creature lunged backwards at Maya and she smelled cooking meat, and it landed on her, dead.

Hera’s agonized screams let her know that they were both still alive. “Mama! MAMA!”

“Baby, are you hurt? HERA. Are you HURT?” The creature was too heavy to push off of her, but she could wriggle out from beneath it. “Cham! Tae!” She couldn’t see anyone, blast this stupid hulk of a beast—she couldn’t see who had saved them and she couldn’t see around it to find out how bloodied Hera was.

“Mama mama mama,” Hera was careening into her now like a droideka, and she thought the little girl’s arm was broken, hanging limp by her side, until she realized that it was simply heavy with the weight of a blaster.

Maya’s blaster. She’d jumped towards Maya’s blaster, and nobody had come up the hill to save them at all. Who had taught Hera how to fire a weapon? She was going to have some serious words—

“Mama, answer me!” Hera was screaming in her face.

She took the sidearm carefully from her daughter, laid it on the ground next to them, then examined her for injuries.

Nothing. Not even a scrape. And her own arm, sliced open in the fight, was already beginning to stop bleeding.

“If you ever—” she said, the words shaking. “If you EVER disobey me like that again—”

Hera sniffed, frightened.

“The next time I tell you to run, you run.”

And there was the stubborn brat expression again, sliding down over her face like a blast door, but this time with something new in the stubbornness, something Maya couldn’t fault. “No, I will NOT leave you.”

Then her otherwise brave girl caught sight of the blood on her mother’s arm and burst into hysterical sobbing. Maya drew her daughter into her lap and rocked her, shaking, squeezing the child in her arms hard enough to hurt. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Hera, you’re okay. We’re going to be fine.”

But they didn’t dare stay like that, unarmed on the hillside. She gave Hera a final squeeze, picked up the blaster, and looked her in the eyes. “Can you walk?”

Hera wiped the tears off her face with two grubby palms. “Yes.”

“My tough girl.” She took her daughter by the hand and they walked down the hill together.

Maya could never explain what made her stop right before they got back to camp, take out the small medical pack, and clean them both into some degree of presentability. Aristocratic pretensions? The reflex knowledge that they were always on display? That long need to hide any weakness so they wouldn’t become a target? Whatever it was, when she walked into camp with Hera neither of them said a word, and the other inhabitants, busy with their own chores, didn’t notice anything amiss.

Hera went quietly with her to their own family’s encampment, where a horrible smell met them.

The rice. Oh, no. She’d burned the rice, beyond salvageability if she could judge from the smell. She’d wasted it. An entire cup. She fell to her knees in front of it and stared.

“It’s okay,” Hera told her, kneeling beside her. “It’s just some rice. Nobody’s mad.”

Maya fumbled under the stove and turned off the burner.

“Mama, come on.”

“Maya?” Cham. She steeled herself. He wouldn’t be angry, but he would quietly tally it in his head as a loss, and that was almost worse.

“Mama burned the rice, but it was because she had to come look for me, and we’re not mad,” Hera explained quickly.

Cham knelt beside her. He took the makeshift lid off the pot and the charred smell intensified. “Well,” he said. And then, “I don’t like normal rice, anyway. It’s too mushy.” He grabbed the stirring spoon and took a small bite. “Crispy and delicious. Here, Hera. Do you want to try?”

The little girl nodded eagerly and took the spoon, and it was almost enough to make Maya laugh, watching her face contort in a failed effort not to show disgust. 

“Hera, don’t eat that. Cham, don’t make her.”

“No,” Hera insisted. “It’s good. I like crispy rice.”

Her good girl and her good boy. They had both survived—and she had survived, too, made it through everything. Who was she to mope and worry? Wasn’t she the daughter of Nercathi chieftains? Hadn’t her people resisted slavers for a thousand years while the rest of the planet fell? Weren’t they even now fending off the combined forces of half the galaxy? It was time to turn disaster into opportunity.

“Leave the rice, Cham. Hera and I caught dinner for the whole camp.”


	3. Aptitude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey! Is that one of our flight simulators?”  
> “Shh! You’re going to throw off her game. Just look at this kid!”  
> Theri looked. He saw a big-headed, green little girl who might have been tall, or might just have been skinny—it was hard to tell. Or maybe that was the dress, which by their standards had probably fit her eight centimeters ago. Just a little tailhead urchin in hand-me-downs, frowning her way through a sequence on a military-grade flight simulator as if it were a game.  
> “So?”

“Once again, General Syndulla, I must advise that the Imperial detachment remain. The Separatists may be broken, but not all of their forces have surrendered. And there are other threats.”

“And once again, Commander Ackley, I thank you for the offer of continued protection. But seeing as the Separatist troops have left our planet and we are not children under your guardianship, I must insist that you leave. Immediately.”

The creases at the corners of the Commander’s eyes deepened, the only sign of his irritation. Standing guard by the meeting room door, Theri tried to look like he wasn’t listening. He didn’t know why the Commander wanted to stay, anyway. As far as he was concerned, this dried out prune of a planet had been trying to kill them since they got here.

“You forged an alliance with us—” Ackley argued.

“I forged an alliance with Mace Windu and your Jedi commanders,” Syndulla cut him off, harsh. “I do not see them here.”

Theri’s fist tightened at his side, but the Commander stayed cool as Chandrilan ice. “Nevertheless, they acted as representatives of the Republic, now the Empire, and we swore to—” 

“We hear rumors, even here, of clone allegiance.”

Of all the asshole insinuations—as if the clones had been the ones to turn against the Jedi. But making more enemies wasn’t part of their assignment, so Theri held perfectly still and Commander Ackley pretended it wasn’t an insult.

Syndulla, for his part, didn’t blink. He’d been their strongest ally on Ryloth, and now that the war was over, he was the loudest voice for kicking the troops off-world. That’s gratitude for you.

The Commander wasn’t going to start a fist-fight, but he wasn’t any too happy, either. “Neither of us has the authority to negotiate what’s to be done with this planet,” he said, tight-lipped. “When the new Viceroy arrives from Coruscant, he’ll have plans. And your council will have to make its decision, of course--you don’t speak for all of Ryloth, General Syndulla.”

“I speak for the Tann province. And for my house, which you are using as your base. And I want you out.”

“Fine.” Yeah, Commander Ackley was definitely pissed off now. “We’re almost packed, anyway. We’ll withdraw today. CT-7724—”

Theri snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.”

“—do a final equipment sweep. If the General won’t listen to reason, maybe the southern provinces will have a different view.”

If Syndulla took that as a threat, he didn’t show it. His face remained about as emotional as a boulder.

Theri threw a sharp salute and left, hoping his relief didn’t show. He’d rather scour the residence for more of their junk than listen to those increasingly hostile negotiations, anyway. He picked up another ten soldiers in the makeshift dining hall, apportioned the floors of the house among them, and put them to work. One more thorough sweep and they were out of here. Ryloth hadn’t been a bad assignment, but as far as he was concerned, it was time to leave, and he wouldn’t be sad if Syndulla got his way. At first, its inhabitants had been grateful, at least—and some of the prettier ones had been particularly, interestingly grateful. Ever since the war ended, though, all they got in town were sidelong looks, as if the tailheads were scared of them, or somehow resented them.

The adults, anyway. The kids were still pretty great, which is why he wasn’t too surprised to walk into one of the second-floor meeting rooms and find Krayt and Bo cheering on some little girl as she played a dual-stick hologame. 

“Hey, Theri, come take a look at this!” Bo motioned him over.

“What’s so great about holo-pong, or whatever they play—” Wait a minute, he recognized those graphics. “Hey! Is that one of our flight simulators?”

“Shh! You’re going to throw off her game. Just look at this kid!”

Theri looked. He saw a big-headed, green little girl who might have been tall, or might just have been skinny—it was hard to tell. Or maybe that was the dress, which by their standards had probably fit her eight centimeters ago. Just a little tailhead urchin in hand-me-downs, frowning her way through a sequence on a military-grade flight simulator as if it were a game.

“So?”

“Are you kidding? Look at her SCORE.”

Theri looked closer and swore.  

“Watch it,” the little girl said in Basic, the first sign that she was aware of their presence at all. “I’m not supposed to hear those words.”

“You two have been training her at this thing, like some mascot?”

Krayt held up his hands, innocent. “No! That’s the schutta of it. We just saw her eyeing it while we were getting ready to pack it up and thought she might like a try. Kid crashed into a mountain, but she got off the ground. Second time, she took out a fighter. This—” he gestured at the screen— “This is only round three.”

Son of a bantha. The kid dodged around the backside of a planetary ring and straightened up her ship, glowering at the screen. Sith if she wasn’t scanning for enemies! And while she wasn’t exactly combat ready or anything, a score like that fresh out of the gate would give their airborne trainees a run for their money.

They had the simulator set on easy mode. When the single enemy fighter rounded the planet’s edge, the kid brought it into her crosshairs and blew it to smithereens. Her smile, a grim little thing, was the first pleased expression he’d seen on her face.

“Hey—” Bo put his hands on hers to straighten them. “You can’t jerk the controls when you fire like that. See? You almost dipped into those rocks.”

“Mm hmm.”

“No, no, watch it! You want to stay away from the rings.”

“Well…” The girl considered. “I’m going to use them to blow up bad guys.” She zagged closer to the belt and the next slow-moving TIE cut an awkward angle towards her and exploded on the rocks. Her score climbed.

Okay, that was pretty badass. But Theri had a job to finish. “Cute kid. When she dies, pack that thing up.” 

“What if she doesn’t die?”

“We have to be out by 1600. That means everything.”

“Or...we could just leave it here. This system’s been decommed anyway.”

“That’s Republic equipment.”

“Don’t you mean IMPERIAL equipment, soldier?” Now Bo was ribbing him, knowing he wouldn’t think it was funny.

“I mean it’s ours.”

“You planning on doing some intense flight training once we get to the next camp? We’ve got five of these things. And you know nobody’s really keeping track of the old equipment now that the war’s over, anyway.”

Theri frowned, and Krayt started in on him, too. “Give it to her. What’ll it hurt? Poor little thing, she just lost her mom.”

The poor little thing frowned intensely at the screen and narrowly missed a boulder. Another hostile went up in flames.

“What’s some tailhead servant’s brat going to do with flight training? You planning on giving her a scholarship?”

“Careful,” Bo told him. “That’s Syndulla’s kid.”

Theri looked at her again and thought he could see a resemblance in the grim mouth and set brow. What was she doing bumping around this place with nobody but military personnel? Not that it was his business. “Even better. He’s not exactly our friend these days.”

“Don’t be a dick. She’s a tough little thing. Planted the detonators that gave you the advantage at Kella last month. Might have saved your life.”

Krayt did a double-take. “That true? Syndulla sent his own kid in with explosives?”

“Unarmed, I think, and two days before anything went down.”

“Still, balls of durasteel.”

“And all the fatherly instincts of a rancor.”

“He didn’t send me,” the kid said.

“What? Hey, keep your eyes on the display!” She narrowly avoided dipping into a spray of pebbles.

“He didn’t send me,” she repeated. “I went.”

Theri watched her play for a minute. Cham Syndulla may have raised a decent-sized army, but this whole planet was still easy prey for any greedy paramilitary group that wanted a foothold. Not poor, exactly—they could have been rich if all their resources weren’t stripped by Coruscant-owned corporations. Nobody here was going to get a whiff of it, though. Best thing the kid could do would be to get away. 

Okay. She was good. Might as well give her a chance. “What the hell, keep the thing.”

Bo howled in triumph and rubbed the kid’s head affectionately. She shook him off in annoyance. “You’re gonna make me crash!”

“Don’t tell the Commander,” Theri ordered belatedly.

“What, that Ghost Company’s gone airborne again? Not a peep."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is from Hera's point of view, I promise.


	4. Intimations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holding tight to her arm, Treya bent over to look her in the face and spoke low. “If you lose your cool like that just because somebody says something nasty to you,” she said, “you are going to end up dead.”

“Hey, sweet little thing.”

Aunt Treya was not usually very affectionate. Hera stopped in her tracks and double-checked that this was really happening.

Yep. That was Aunt Treya leaning against the door to her favorite vid room.

“Come over here, sweetie.”

“No.”

Treya laughed, her normal self again. “Good instincts.”

“Why are you being so weird?”  

“Let’s try another one.” That strange tone, that affected expression, came over her body again. “Hey, sexy. You have a boyfriend?”

“I’m twelve. What is wrong with you?”

“Perfect.”

“Can you move, please?”

“Oh, you want to go through here?” Relaxed against the door, Treya didn’t budge.

“Move.”

“No.”

Her aunt was six feet tall and broader than her father, a soldier through and through. Hera couldn’t move her forcibly. She squared her stance, crossed her arms, and glowered.

Treya took no notice. “One more,” she said. “Then I’ll leave you alone.” She glanced around to make sure nobody else was listening, and although Hera didn’t know what her normally straightforward aunt was up to, that was enough to make her nervous.

“You know what schutta means?”

“Yes.” Sort of. Well, she could infer.

“Okay then, Hera. You tell me what you’re going to do if somebody says this to you: ‘Hey!’”

Hera jumped. Treya was shouting now, angry words echoing across the empty atrium. “You heard me, you little tailhead schutta. You think you’re too good for me? I said get over here and get down on your knees, now.”

“Wh—” She stopped, could think of nothing else to say, finished her thought. “What?” She understood the words, but she couldn’t put them together in a way that made any sense.

No, that wasn’t quite right. The embarrassment burning a hole in the pit of her stomach told her what KIND of thing her aunt was saying to her, even if she didn’t understand it all.

“Wrong,” Treya said. “You stand there with your mouth hanging open like that, I can tell you exactly what’s going to happen next.”

“Shut up,” she told her aunt rudely. “Move.” She went for the door handle, but Treya simply stayed where she was, and Hera was left tugging on it uselessly, trapped. “MOVE!”

“That’s wrong, too,” Treya said. “They want you upset.”

“MOVE!” Hera shrieked at the top of her lungs, stomping her foot. “Stop it, stop saying those things, STOP IT!” That was punctuated with another babyish stomp. Her face felt hot and she couldn’t stop yelling.

“Hey—” Treya grabbed her arm. “Calm it down.”

“LET GO OF ME!” Hera tugged.

Holding tight to her arm, Treya bent over to look her in the face and spoke low. “If you lose your cool like that just because somebody says something nasty to you,” she said, “you are going to end up dead.”   

Hera stopped pulling away and shivered.

“I am going to say these things to you again. Not tomorrow. In a few weeks, when you’re off-guard. What are you going to do next time?”

Hera shook her head, bewildered. Was this a trick question? “I’m going to yell at you and tell you not to do it.”

“And if I don’t stop?”

“I’ll...call you names back.”

“Then I’ll punch you in the face or strangle you. I’m a lot bigger.”

Hera stopped, wary. What did she mean—people would do that if she called them names, or she, Aunt Treya, would really punch Hera in the face to teach her how to handle it? It was hard to tell.

She must have had some stricken expression, because Treya let her go and said, “You’re a big girl, Hera. You can take care of yourself. Go ahead and play your game now.” She opened the door.

Hera turned heel and fled in the other direction.

She locked herself in the seventh floor greenhouse and laid down on the tile between meiloorun trees. The light passed through the synthetic reflectors and filtered down to her golden, almost white. It was the brightest room in the house. This palace in Tann was safer than the caves on the edge of the brightlands—she wouldn’t get a skin disease here. But Tann stayed perpetually half-light, and she missed the freedom of being able to see where she was going. She was miserable here. She didn’t want any of this.

So she stretched out in the sun’s warmth and pretended it could burn away everything bad. Arms and legs spread, fingers and toes, with the warm clay tile under her back. The sun made bright spots behind her closed eyelids. There, Hera. That’s better, she supplied, her own little comforting voice.

What was she supposed to do the next time Treya said those things? Hera didn’t know the answer, and that uncertainty sat heavy in her stomach. She’d been hunted before, by animals, by droids. This wasn’t the same. What WAS this feeling?

Treya would come after her again, for her own good, so she learned how to take care of herself. And what would happen if she failed? Some vague, horrible threat that she didn’t understand, like being terrified of ghosts at night because she didn’t know what they were or what they could do to her. She didn’t know the rules of this fight.

So she was weak and helpless, some stupid, hurt kid, and the shame of that failure soaked into every piece of her and started her—oh, no, not this again—crying. She pressed her palms against her eyes, but the despair was too strong to stop this time, so she covered her mouth instead and said into her hand where nobody could hear it, “I want my mother.”

All of this would be okay if only Maya were here. Her mother wouldn’t have said those things to her and then left her all alone. Her mother would have explained and helped her. Mama, she thought for the millionth time, I am trying to be brave, but please. How much longer do I have to do this without you? 

The silence was its own answer.  

And then a sound, a footfall outside the door. “Hera!” Her father’s voice, close by. “Hera, are you here?”

She clamped her mouth shut and stopped crying. Chopper, that traitor. He must have been keeping track of her. But why would he get her father instead of coming himself?

“Hera?”

No. Go away, she thought.

Instead, her aunt’s voice joined in. “I’ve searched the sixth floor already, Cham. If she wanted to be found, we would have found her by now.”

Father was angry. No surprise there. “I do not have time for your rycrit shit today, Treya.” Of course he didn’t.

“Who asked for your help? Just go back to your office and let me parent your child for you.”

“Oh, no. You don’t get to try that on me. I was IN my office until you started  sexually harassing my daughter loudly enough for the whole building to hear.”

Oh, this was interesting. They were talking about Hera. And she hadn’t imagined that creepy tone in Treya’s voice—her father had heard it too.

“You’ve sheltered her too much, Cham.”

“I have sheltered her? That child--and yes, she is still a child, Treya--that CHILD can handle a blaster and plant explosives. My parenting has drawn its share of criticism, but never that I sheltered her.”

“Oh, come off your high blurrg.”

“Go to hell.”

Nobody talked to her father that way. Nobody talked to her aunt that way, either. This was getting interesting.

Now Treya was speaking again. “You can’t keep her in your camps and your palaces forever. She’ll go out into the world someday expecting to be treated like a person, and what will she do when she sees what it’s really like? She’ll crumple. You’ve got to build in some toughness.”

“No one on Ryloth OR Coruscant would dare talk to a Syndulla the way you—”

“Don’t be naive.”

A silence that meant he was glowering at Aunt Treya. She took advantage of it to keep lambasting him. “And another thing, if you’re so interested in her entering your fine, dignified society, you could take her with you to these diplomatic meetings. In fact, take her with you today.”

“First you want her to learn to talk like a pilot, and now you want her to learn to lie like a politician?” Cham scoffed.

“I want her to learn any other register than addressing everyone as if they were a schoolyard friend. She even talks to the droids that way. If you want Hera to fight with words instead of blasters someday, you can’t start sooner.”

“Wait just one minute. I am the one  yelling at you. For catcalling my daughter, specifically. How did this become about me?”

“This whole DISCUSSION started because you never tell her anything. You never even talk to her except to tell her to be a good little soldier—”

Cham was yelling now, really yelling. “And what would YOU have her be?”

A tense silence in which Hera could almost hear them breathing. Treya decided to take the bait. “Free. I would have her be free. Not trapped here.”

“This conversation is over.” Two quick footfalls—her father meant it.

“Hey!” Treya yelled. “Don’t you walk away from me!”

Cham stopped, and when he spoke, his words came out much calmer than Hera had expected. “Maya and I kept her with us because we wanted to. And because there’s precious little safety anywhere, as you note, and we’d rather she be shot than certain other deaths. I still would.”  

Other deaths? What other deaths? Slaves, Hutts, spice—she knew all the elements of what to fear, but not how they fit together. And nobody would tell her.

But they were talking again. About Hera.

“She won’t stay, Cham.”

“She will if I make her.”

“You can’t DO that. She hates you for it already.”

“I don’t care if she hates me! She will stay HERE and she will be SAFE!”

“Says the father who sends his daughter to plant bombs.”

“You get drunk and put her behind you on a speeder! At least I have a purpose!”

“Fuck you. At least I self-medicate my damage.”

A tense silence, and then her father’s even footfalls walking away without another word.

“Shit,” Treya cursed. Thump, went her fist against the wall.

Then the door to the greenhouse opened. Crap, oh crap. Hera stood hastily and wiped her face on the hem of her shirt. She wished she had time to wash it, but as things were she’d barely straightened up when her aunt found her standing like a guilty thing in the middle of the room.

“Hera! Oh. Did you—”

Don’t ask me if I heard what you said, Hera thought.

She needn’t have worried; Treya wanted to have that scene about as much as Hera did, herself. “Did you hear us calling?” she asked instead.

A shrug.

“Are— you okay?”

“Fine,” Hera said shortly.

Treya relaxed. If Hera had cried or something like that, she would only have said, “Feel better,” as if it were some kind of order, anyway. Better to avoid all of the awkward stuff.  “Okay then. See you later, kid.”

“Aunt Treya?”

Her aunt turned to her and for a moment Hera thought she was going to apologize, but she only took a deep breath and pretended everything was fine. “What?”

“I don’t know the answer. I can’t figure it out.”

“Oh yeah?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say. Anything I can think of only makes things worse.”

Treya nodded wisely. “Smart kid.”

“So...will you tell me?”

Her aunt considered, sizing her up for a long moment. “You say nothing.”

“What? Really.”

“You ignore all of it and leave as fast as you can.”

“You would never run away.”

“When I’m not on Ryloth, when I’m outnumbered? I most certainly would.”

“Well, I’m never going to do that.”

Her aunt crossed her arms with that infuriating smile adults always smiled at children. “You know everything, huh? Keep thinking, then. Oh, and get dressed and wash your face. Your father’s taking you with him to his meeting today.”

Hera scoffed. “He doesn’t want me with him.”

Treya rolled her eyes, exasperated, and answered without thinking. “Hera, he doesn’t know WHAT he wants. He’s just scared.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Well, you’re going with him today. No niece of mine is going to be afraid of the galaxy.”

“Fine.” She turned to stalk off.

“Hera—” Treya put a hand on her shoulder as she passed.

Hera shook her off violently. “I said I’d be brave, all right? Just leave me alone.”


	5. Acclimating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teenage girls—no matter how different they were when they started out, if you put them in a building together for a few months they all came out sounding the same.

“Hera. Hey, Hera!” Tomh motioned her over.

“Hey, Tomh!” she mimicked.

“Invite us in.”

Hera shrugged. “Not my party.”

“Come on, don’t be like that! I’ll let you kick my butt in combat flight tomorrow.”

Hera raised a skeptical eyebrow. “I’ll kick your butt in combat flight tomorrow anyway, like I always do.” 

“This is discrimination!”

“Mmm,” she considered. “Maybe. I think you’ll live. It’s Bili’s room, and Bili says it’s girls’ night.”

“Girls’ night is when all the ladies get sloppy drunk at the bar.” 

“Gross.” She knocked on the door of the dormitory room.

“What do you guys do in there, anyway?” 

Bili opened the door, stuck out her tongue at Tomh, blew an impressive, Rodian-style raspberry, and yanked Hera in by one arm. Hera mimed a dramatic pout in Tomh’s direction before the door shut.

She was the last one in, five girls in her year of flight school already gathered around a blanket on the tile floor while the sixth lounged on her bunk, scornful of this kind of shenanigan. Hera took the place that had been left for her.

“Okay, we’re ready,” Bili said. “Did you get it?”

Corinne reached into her backpack and produced a foil-wrapped rectangle. “This,” she announced dramatically, “is murder chocolate.” 

“Pfft,” Aliya said. “Talk, talk, talk.”

“Yeah,” Hera put in, unimpressed. “On Ryloth we eat terlic peppers for breakfast.”

“On Ryloth we brush our teeth with savaak venom,” Hazel mimicked. “You do not eat terlic peppers for breakfast.”

“We don’t,” Hera admitted, grinning.

“Okay, ladies, time to put your mouth where your mouth is,” Corinne demanded, pounding on the edge of the bunk to get their attention. Jerusha, on the bed, shot her an evil look. “We’ve got six liters of ice cream melting on the floor, and you’re going to want them after you taste this stuff.” 

“Break it out!” Aliya ordered. “I’ll bet it’s not that spicy.”

“Actually—” Jerusha popped out one earphone and opened one annoyed eye from the bottom bunk, “craehn powder will burn your throat and stomach. Even most Zabrak don’t like it and it’s ILLEGAL TO EXPORT.” She frowned at Corinne. 

“Whateeeever,” Aliya told her. “It’s not mixed in the chocolate THAT strongly.”

“And we planned ahead,” Hazel spoke up. “See?” She grabbed a carton of ice cream and stuck in a spoon. “Medicine!”

“Melting,” Bili reminded them. “On my floor. Get on with it.”

Corinne passed out squares of chocolate.

“Okay,” Hera asked. “Do we do this all at once, or one at a time?”

“Oh, one at a time! We need to make fun of people as they go.” 

“I like melty ice cream,” Graeme put in belatedly.

“You are sick and twisted,” Hazel told her, caf ice cream and spoon in her mouth.

“Whatever, I’m doing this. Everybody say ‘one two three, go!’” Aliya bit down on her square without waiting. They all watched her intently. “Nothing,” she said. Then, as she exhaled: “Aaaah, oh, ooooh stars!” She grabbed the closest vat and shoveled a spoonful in her mouth. “Mm, that is AWFUL! Oh! It burns!” Junaberry freeze dribbled out of her mouth and into the container. 

“Yuck, I liked that flavor!” Graeme protested. “Stop drooling in it!”

Bili and Hazel convulsed in laughter, while Corinne looked grimly triumphant. “Told you.”

Aliya spoke around a mouthful of ice cream. “You try it, Mando.”

Corinne broke off a corner of chocolate, perfectly square, and popped it into her mouth primly. They watched her eyes water. Bili’s ears twitched in barely-contained amusement as her control wavered. It took all of ten seconds for Corinne to break, finally spitting her chocolate into a napkin and yelling, “Kriff, kriff, kriff! Give me that spoon! No, not the junaberry, Liya ruined that.” 

They went around the circle, every one of them declaring that the stuff was awful and agreeing that their throats would be burned for a week. “I might not taste anything EVER,” Hazel lamented. “I think it just burned off my last taste bud.”

Then it was Hera’s turn. “Surely it’s not THAT bad,” she said. “Liya?”

“Oh, it’s…” Aliya really wanted to be blasé, but she couldn’t lie to save her life. “No, it’s that bad. It still hurts. Like, a LOT.”

“Great. This is probably a great plan, then.”

“Peer pressure!” Bili crowed in delight, and Corinne passed her a square. Hera popped it in her mouth.

It tasted like spicy chocolate, the warm liquid mixed with cinnamon and terlic so often served in Twi’lek colonies. It tasted fine. It… It tasted like burning.

A lot of burning. On her tongue and the roof of her mouth, then in her nose and eyes. She took deep breaths. Her eyes streamed tears. She swallowed.

The rest of the girls watched her and waited with growing disappointment. “You’re not going to say ANYTHING?” Aliya demanded.

Hera reached for what was left of the caf ice cream, Hazel’s spoon still in the container. “You’re right. It hurts,” she said.

“And?”

She took a bite, sniffed, wiped her streaming nose on her sleeve. “A lot.” 

“Uuuuugh!” Aliya fell back on the floor dramatically. “You are the WORST!”

“Leave her alone,” snapped Graeme, Hera’s roommate. She hardly ever raised her voice, but she’d seen enough of Hera’s life over the past months to become fiercely protective in her own quiet way, and Hera was profoundly grateful for her. 

“No way. Nothing ever bothers Ms. Perfect, here.”

“I SAID it hurt.”

“Yeah, you said it, but Force forbid you SHOW it like us mere mortals.”

Hera had tried to hang back, tried to learn the rules of this mid-rim society that they all seemed accustomed to, but she was fed up with making constant mistakes that she didn’t even understand. “What is your PROBLEM, Liya? What did I ever do to you?”

“You fly better than she does,” Corinne observed, and Aliya’s cheeks darkened with the truth of that statement.  

“I’m putting the ice cream away,” Bili cut them off, irritated. “If we’re all done.”

Hazel waved her away. Bili gathered the sodden cartons and left.

Aliya continued without missing a beat. “It’s not that,” she stormed. “That’s fine. It’s whatever. You fly better than any of us. It’s just... you don’t have any faults, and that’s bullshit. Look, I’m sorry. I was totally out of line. You just don’t seem like a person, Hera. You’re so stuck up you don’t ever relax around us.”

“Stuck up?!”

Graeme’s face darkened, but Hera shook her head imperceptibly: No. I’m fine. I want to hear this.

“Even when you hang out with us, it’s like you’re not really here. Just be a person, okay? Tell us something about you.” 

“What do you want me to tell? I’m from Ryloth. My family is fairly well off. I survived the Clone Wars. I hate it there, so now I’m here. And my mouth hurts.”

Corrine sniggered, and Aliya smiled in spite of herself.

“I don’t think that’s what she meant, Hera,” Hazel put in gently. “We’re not out to get you. We LIKE you. You seem like you don’t believe that.”

“I really don’t know what you want me to say!” 

“You need a script?” Aliya asked. Corinne kicked her sharply in the shin. “Ow!”

“Tell us about a time when you messed something up,” Hazel suggested. “You’ve seen all of us mess things up.”

Hera shrugged, at a loss. “Right now.”

Corinne laughed. “For real.”

“For real! I don’t know the rules here. You ask me who I like, and then I tell you, and it’s some kind of cause for gossip. But I like a lot of you. Our year is a good group of people.” 

Hazel’s mouth fell open. “Oh,” she said in realization. “You don’t mean ‘like’ like—”

“Then you talk sex _constantly_ , so I try to join in and you look at me like— I didn’t know you hadn’t— Things are taboo here, or they mean something different, and I don’t know the rules. It’s not dirty where I come from. It’s not forbidden in the same way. No wonder everyone out here has a complex.”

“Oh, honey,” Corinne said, and the sympathy coursed through her like shame. This is why she didn’t want to share any of these doubts.

“It’s nothing. It’s fine. I’m fine. But I’m not—”

“What?” Graeme asked softly.

“At home, I’m very focused. Driven. I’m not here for boys’ convenience, and I’m not some kind of…”

“It’s okay,” Graeme put in quickly.

“...Twi’lek stereotype,” she finished lamely. _Shutta_ , her aunt’s voice echoed in her head. The word had a definite meaning off of Ryloth, and though her life had been completely separate from the galaxy’s treatment of Twi’lek women, she didn’t know what kind of image she projected out here simply by existing.

“Nobody thinks that about you,” Hazel put in quickly.

“Seriously, NOBODY,” Corinne echoed.

“Yeah, you’re always buttoned up to the collar all prim and proper…”

Corinne kicked Aliya again. “You are an asshole!” 

“I really am,” she confirmed, grinning. “Look, Hera, no hard feelings. Cori’s right. I’m just bitter because you fly better than me, and it’s kind of hard not to hate you for that because I don’t really KNOW you.”

Bili opened the door and slipped back in the room. “They’re in the gray lounge griping about us,” she reported.

“Pathetic.” Corinne rolled her eyes. “Can’t they get their own plans?”

“Nope.” She took a look around, gauging the mood of the room. “Did I miss the fist fight?” Then she caught sight of Hera’s teary eyes. “Whoa, did I REALLY miss the fist fight?”

“Yeah,” Hera laughed. “Liya kicked my ass.”

“I pulled her lek and Hera cried her eyes out,” Aliya joked good-naturedly. “We’re cool.”

Bili rolled her eyes. “I’m going to miss you laserbrains when we graduate.”

“Not me!” said Corinne. “I’m charting a straight course for Concord Dawn an hour after graduation.” 

“Hope they let you in instead of shooting you down.”

Corinne stuck her tongue out at Hazel, then asked: “Hera, what are you going to do after graduation?”

She shrugged. “Get as far away from home as I can, get a job that doesn’t involve taking off my clothes. Probably fly freighters.”

“Yeah, right.” Hazel grinned. “Top of the class here is for SURE going to fly combat. Had any offers from the Imperial academy yet?”

“They’re only accepting humans.”

“Bet that changes when they see you fly.”

“No,” Hera said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Weak,” Aliya declared. “After flight school, I’m going to join the Rebellion.”

“Pffft,” Bili put in. “What Rebellion?”

“Against the garbage masher fire that is the Empire.”

“Nah.”

“Am too. I’m no fascist enabler.”

“Look.” Bili rolled her eyes. “Nobody likes the Empire. But there’s no such thing as the Rebellion.” 

“Is too. And even if there’s not, there will be once I get started.”

“You’d be crushed,” Corinne put in, frowning. “Anyone would be. They have total control over the biggest military industrial complex the galaxy has ever seen, and they have all the resources.”

“Not yet,” Graeme put in. 

“Getting there. Look, even Mandalore is a proxy government at this point. If the Mandalorians can’t make a stand, you, my love, are screwed.”

Aliya’s jaw took on that stubborn set that made her both a good pilot and a terrible pilot, by turns. “I don’t care. I don’t care. You wait and see, the Corellian run planets are going to secede, and losing the money from spice ought to make a dint in the Imperial treasury.”

“They won’t,” Bili returned. “The Toydarians aren’t doing anything, and neither are the Geonosians. And FORGET the inner rim; they make money off the whole hyperspace lane.” 

“I don’t know,” Graeme spoke up. “Have you been listening to the news? Ryloth will probably go. Cham Syndulla’s ready to go to war by himself.”

They all turned, one thought in their heads, and looked at Hera. Bili asked the question. “Hey, not to be speciesist, but...are you related to Cham Syndulla?”

“Syndulla is a very common last name,” she said truthfully and weakly. It seemed to satisfy them. 

“Some of the Corellian run planets WILL secede.” Jerusha turned over on the bed and pulled out her earphones, shocking all of them. “It’s not just Syndulla. There’s real movement, militarization on a number of Outer Rim planets. Somebody’s going to secede, and then they’ll get slaughtered.”

Aliya had her arms crossed stubbornly, close to tears, still defiant. “I hate you guys. You have no hope. Give me that stupid chocolate again, Cori.” 

Wordlessly, Corinne broke off a piece. Aliya shoved it in her mouth and clamped down on it, refusing to give up, tears of pain streaming from the corners of her eyes.

And Hera sat there silently. What was SHE going to do after graduation? Oh, nothing. Probably just fly freighters, whatever she did now. Certainly she didn’t spend her leave time running supplies for her aunt and godfather and the rest of the Outer Rim resistance. Nope. Nothing to see here.

Meanwhile, Aliya would rather burn her esophagus than admit defeat.

Hera cleared her throat. “Give that chocolate to me, Cori. I’m game.” She broke off a small piece and popped it into her mouth, breathing gingerly around the pain.

“Yeah,” Bili said. “I guess you’d better pass it around again. We’re all in, right, girls?”

Jerusha sat up with an exaggerated sigh, throwing her datapad with a thunk on the bed. “You guys are all complete morons, you know? Here, give me a piece of that stupid chocolate.”

 

...

 

Ex- Lieutenant Commander Doran Ragan wasn’t usually tasked with weekend dorm checks, because:

a) He was a senior flight instructor and had aged out of such menial duties,

b) Like all the other male instructors, he was extremely uncomfortable checking the girls’ dorms for any mischief-maker

c) If these kids were old enough to be combat trained, he thought they were damned well old enough to do whatever they pleased in their own dorms,

and d) He was a big softie and everybody knew he wouldn’t really discipline any of them.    
  
But his sister had had a baby on Kalevala, and he owed the other instructors for covering his shifts while he visited. So here he was on a weekend night, not sipping Corellian brandy and watching documentaries, but instead halfheartedly shooing whining boys out of the gray lounge and listening to the hum of the girls’ voices behind one of their doors. One of them said something and the resulting burst of laughter made him shake his head. It was a good group this year, boys and girls alike. Incredibly skilled, every one of them. Competitive in the way that pilots were always competitive, but friendly about it, using the pressure to push each other higher rather than tear each other apart. He felt a rush of affection for these kids who would graduate and leave one day, then grow up and stop giggling. Somebody else made a comment as he passed by the door, but he couldn’t tell any of their voices apart. Teenage girls—no matter how different they were when they started, if you put them in a building together for a few months they all came out sounding the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tag yourself, I'm...probably Aliya (although less of an asshole). I'm so ashamed. :-D


End file.
